Card Gnome Blog Feature

Featured on Card Gnome Blog

I've had the honor recently to be accepted to a new greeting card site called Card Gnome. Card Gnome sells cards from independent artists who have gone through the process of a portfolio review. A bold move on their part, but I do notice on their site cards of higher quality. It's a true pleasure to view their assortment and the way they display the cards enhances the overall appeal of the site and each individual card.
I was recently highlighted in their blog. They are a supportive company with a kind and helpful staff. I can't say enough good things about them, and not to mention, they are also a Green company concerned with the well being of our beautiful planet. If you have a moment, please pay them a visit. You will not be disappointed!

Something Refreshing

Has it been this long this my last post? I sometimes forget to blog with everything else that needs attention.
After years of promotion and having so much art on the net, I was just offered to join with a company on their merchant's program as well as their wholesale one. They do all the promotion, which is great, and they are wonderful to deal with. They found me trolling through Zazzle. I'm also now on a new card site where you have to submit a portfolio for review in order to be accepted. The nice thing about that is that the work on the site as a whole is of higher quality. I think the one thing I come to realize is that because of Photoshop and programs like that, and digital cameras, people feel they can just jump onto one of these free sites, open a store, and viola! They'll have success. The unfortunate thing, is that there is just so much bad art out there now, including photographs. It's really not all that simple, and great concepts play a huge role, especially when selling to the public. The art world now seems to echo reality tv where there's a lot of it, but you don't necessarily want to look at it.
So come and pop by my new card store on Card Gnome. It's a new company with a lot of potential and one that seems to care about the quality on their site. Kind of like a well produced tv show. Something worth watching.

My Card Store on Card Gnome

Lemurs Wearing Snow Princess

I almost forget that I even have a blog with all the other social networking I do. It all pulls so much time away from the creative process that I have to make an effort to pull myself away from the computer. We all have that problem I suppose. A new addiction.

Lemurs came to mind recently, and who knows why or how these things happen. It wasn't like I saw a movie or Animal Planet or something. Maybe it was just a thing about the fact that we kill animals in order to have clothes. So the opposite would be to wear animals live or they could wear us for a change! The woman came to me as more of a ghostly image so I named her the "Snow Princess." I'm not into morbid visuals or names so I chose to be as light as possible with it. Then, I read about Lemurs. Always nice to read about chosen subjects. There's always something new to learn, so without going into an educational piece about them, I've come to find that they are named after Lemures, the ghosts and spirits of Roman Mythology. They are a breed of primates that take up residence in Madagascar. Maybe the name of the art should be "Woman with Spirits." Before I title a piece, I better
do a little research first. So many wonderful things in our world to be inspired by. The list is endless.

Chalk pastels on tinted Canson pastel paper. This piece has already been featured in the "Artists Universe" group on RedBubble.

It's Party Time!

My husband always asks me where the images like the one above come from. And most the time I tell him I don't know. And that's the truth. I visualize so strongly, that suddenly it's there in front of me and I just sit down and start to draw it. Purely from my mind. Other times I'm inspired by photos or articles or words that I hear. Looking at this face now that it's done, I know where my muse came from. I have a brilliant writer friend on FB that has the most wonderful face and her daughter is equally beautiful. I am taken with their hair and skin color and their fabulous eyes. Once I see a face I love, I'm able to retain it in my mind for a very long time. It's not just the features but the essence of the person that I feel in order to be able to draw a similarity. And then my sister has the most adorable cats, so when I draw cats now, they are usually touching which emulates the bond that her two cats have with each other. This illustration is done in black marker and colored markers on really crappy sketch paper by industry standards. But sometimes the crappy paper is ok. I dedicate this illustration to writer Lia Keyes and her daughter.

Cassandra's Hummingbird

I love to draw faces. I think it's my favorite thing to draw. I find faces absolutely fascinating with the eyes being my favorite part. I'm always intent on capturing the sole and I want to try and feel what the subject is feeling as I paint him/her.

Cassandra has such a striking face with strong bone structure that I couldn't resist putting her features to a pastel painting. With a little bit of fantasy thrown in and inspired by the way I see her, the final result is "Cassandra's Hummingbird."

She is available on my RedBubble site as cards and prints. http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/6570598-laminated-print

Waiting in a Floral Dress

 

Pastel painting inspired by a floral dress I saw in a catalog. I had always thought I would be a clothing designer but once I got to college and realized the amount of sewing involved, I opted for a fashion illustration class instead. My first love is drawing but I was also into fashion and dreamed of designing clothes one day. I just wasn't into it enough to endure the frustration of sewing and draping. I thoroughly enjoyed my fashion and life drawing classes.

This artwork has been chosen to be featured on the homepage of RedBubble today. See my post below.